H.e. Ross

Author on Reedsy Prompts since May, 2023

Stories (42)

42 Stories

727 karma pts

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“Arrival In My Home Port” by H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #248

(1731 words)‘It matters little how much is destroyed, if only a germ of the miraculous be preserved and nurtured.’ -Henry Miller My city is seven miles by seven miles, maybe a little more or less on either side but essentially is a round-edged square. San Francisco is the kind of place you come to or leave. All of my life’s memories of that beautiful place are captured in movements with only one big and important memory-box showing me sitting still and that was the day I started sailing. I sat on a rock beneath a...

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“Hands of a Sailor” by H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #245

I sat in front of Dobie as he got animated while telling his tale of the Turtling hurricane that he survived. I know a little was going to be from his imagination but I sat to hear the tale of a real storyteller on a starry night with a warm breeze against my cheek and the gentle rock of my ketch in the change of tide swell. He took a gulp of rum and began with a nod of head.‘The wind started to go all wrong and Cop’n had to order a reef in the main. Then he had to order the jib topsail down, then another reef. The seas were kicking up with ...

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“Saut d'Eau” by H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #244

I left Labadie for the Turks and Caicos Islands spending a year establishing a magazine there with my lovely friend, DianaLou. Every chance I got I was back in Haiti until I finally moved to a loosely situated community called Merger, twenty kilometres south of Port au Prince. It was an ugly little box of a summer cottage I rented but sat on a rectangular acre of land bordered by coconut palms, the railroad tracks and the two lane highway beyond them, a line of thorny shrubbery with fallow farmland on its other side and the sea. I had a brea...

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“The Best Dinghy In the World” by H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #240

It started with buying a boat that was sunk. I had saved up the money to buy a boat and was wandering around a boat sales place when I saw the upturned stern of a small sloop. I could tell is was a sloop by the mast partially angled out of the water. The cabin was completely submerged but the rounded stern was beautiful with the rudder giving little jerks with the falling tide movements. I ran back to the office and told them about the sloop. They hadn’t been out on the dock that morning and hadn’t seen that the boat had sunk.That’s how it s...

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“Sailor” by H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #239

I anchored Magic in a little cove that was bordered by coco palms and fern over a black sand beach. It was one of those perfect beach scenes that I dreamt about as a child and now I was here. I got the dinghy in the water faster than ever with the thought that maybe the cove might disappear. I had my rum and a sandwich in my backpack to celebrate a small delight at finding this place. Before I touched the sand I had a sense of being in that dream; that I wasn’t really alive yet but still comfortably in my cot under our tree in our backyard. ...

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“Football” by H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #235

Football It lay across my chest like a moist log and I knew it was just Carman’s arm but it seemed to push down on me as I inhaled and it made me gag. I sat up quickly as the bile rose in my throat, singeing the sides, forming bitter spots in my mouth. It was coming up and I could not breathe. My eyes searched shadows with moonlight hard against walls and still curtains. Her eyes were wide and staring, mouth moving words distant; not understandable. A little air, then a little more, then it closed off again. Alive, I thought with that air...

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“Wanted: Dead or Alive” by H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #228

There was the time... I was presented a plate at a friend’s house that had four little ribs that had been barbecued over an outside grill laying next to an ice cream cupped mound of potato salad with a little pile of green peas.They were all set on a nice plain white plate. I looked at it and ate them, smiling at my host at the texture of the meat I was chewing, smacking at the just enough sweetness of the potato salad and neatly filling my fork of the green peas. Then, there was the time... I got excited over a package of Chimichurri in t...

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“Salt and Pepper” by H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #224

Zihuatenejo was one of those places that seemed to widen as you wandered its streets. There was a very large and very busy central part of town with traffic from all parts junctioning. There you would find movie theatres, street vendors, a lot of sweet-smelling portable taco grill stands, shops, a brown leafed plaza park, dust noise and even a few beggars. Thankfully, the day was finally ending, though its warmth kept time moving slowly. Shops had opened after siesta and musics ranged from ballads to charro to rap to clashing cymbals of Mexi...

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“Obsolete in A Dead Man’s Land” by H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #222

Sensitive Content: The story reflects the life of a young woman who is abused to the point of suicide but is rescued by strangers who see that she has special powers. There is drug abuse and sexual harm in the story. You are the man of my dreams. You are. And, I wish to tell you my story. I wish that you know me, my love. What I tell you now I have never told another, at least not all of it. When I first saw you getting your hair cut, so insecure, almost worried. We giggled and I gave you the encouragement of a thumb’s up. It might no...

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“Fate is a Route” by H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #221

Sugar found that he was not being permitted to leave Coatzacoalcos by the gang he had become a part at the cantina. Don Marcello arranged a hunting trip for him with two brothers, Enrique, or Ric, and Tomas, or TT. They sat outside the first morning of his stay sitting on two brown horses with a third saddled pinto waiting for Sugar. The brothers wore short brimmed conical straw hats that Sugar had seen around but never before arriving in Coatzacoalcos. The three horses were good quality breeds and full of spirit. His horse was named Tupac, ...

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“Carpet” by H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #220

Bill shut his eyes, feeling pressured weight trying to move him. He smiled, turned his head away, He still felt the pressure and wondered who it could be. Bill opened his eyes to see sand. There was sand all about him and a slope was sliding to his side a bit. He was alone with a sun that was just overhead, now about to set. The quiet spoke to him with the hollowness of an empty world. He looked this way and that, feeling the heat of the day as his robes swirled with each jerked turning. A bare shimmer caught his eye, then it disappeared wi...

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“Big Pete” by H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #219

Big Pete thought. It occurred to him that he was thinking. I think somebody is listening to me think.‘Ah, the patient awakes, Monty.’ The voice echoed through a pale darkness. ‘Untie his eye blinders, Monty. Okay, the blindfold, idiot. Let him see the light.’Pete thought he heard a chuckle as he saw his eyelashes raising and brightness penetrating his head in spear points and lightening strokes. He thought it unusual to be thinking so eloquently and thought it strange to use these descriptive phrases. He wondered, as the pain resumed its way...

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“Merger” by H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #216

Tomas was pissed. From my Merger rental he marched along the highway stumbling in ruts and over branches making him more and more angry. He delighted in kicking coconut sheathings out of his way. It was black dark. Trees all lining the highway road. No lights. He knew there was a mountain climbing straight up on one side of the roadway. He knew there was still sea a short distance through the brush on the other. There was no moon. There were lots of mosquitoes, no wind, humid. Tomas was pissed. He tore his wet shirt off, got attac...

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“Through the Valley of Volcanoes to the lake of shimmering light” by H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #215

The train pulled to a stop with a lot of shuddering at the mainland seaport of San Carlos near the top of the Sea of Cortez. They got off. The journey from the border was too much. The train felt as though it had no springs and every little bump registered on their backsides. They were told that the connecting train to Mexico City was more comfortable and had sleeping compartments. If it were true then that would be great. For the moment they wanted a bed in a non-moving hotel and they found one, called the Mar Vista that had not only a view...

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“Passage” by H.e. Ross

Submitted to Contest #214

It was on the third day out that they both wanted to call somebody to pick them up. I was bringing dinner up one plate at a time. Damian took his plate and made the announcement. I smiled. ‘Damian,’ I had to look up at the sky and not at him. Little puffs of cloud on a stark and clear deep blue. ‘where do you think you are? You aren’t really asking to be picked up by somebody, are you?’ He nodded and Mark, behind him, was nodding too. I came up out of the cabin and looked around at the rise of an oncoming swell framed by an empty horizon ...

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Author bio

I am a Black San Franciscan who has been sailing for over 59 years and writing for about 30+ of those years. I have either created or assisted the creation of four maritime heritage organisations with an emphasis on African Diasporic contributions to the skills involved under sail. I have written for publications and have published two magazines, one maritime heritage book and a self-published novel. I am presently sitting on several unpublished novels, short stories and quite a bit of poetry. My partner and our two children live in Cornwall, England and I had about thirty years of living, working and sailing in the Caribbean.